Spring rate for your weight: how to know if your springs are right

Stock springs are chosen for an average rider, usually around 75-85 kg in gear. If you are significantly lighter or heavier, no amount of clicker adjustment will fix it - clickers control how fast oil moves, springs control how much the bike sits and supports your weight. The fastest free upgrade for many riders is the correct spring.

Read it from sag, not from a chart

Two sag numbers tell you whether the spring is right

• Rider (race) sag - how far the bike settles with you on board in full kit. Set this first with preload.
• Static sag - how far it settles under its own weight, no rider.

Set rider sag to the target for your discipline using preload. Then check static sag. If rider sag is correct AND static sag falls in the normal window, the spring matches you. If you had to wind in a lot of preload to hit rider sag and static sag is now very small, the spring is too soft. If you backed preload almost all the way out and static sag is large, the spring is too stiff.

Why preload is not a substitute

Adding preload to cover a too-soft spring raises the bike and harshens the initial stroke without adding real support deeper down - the bike still blows through its travel under load. Correct rate plus moderate preload gives both the right ride height and the right support.

Air forks are adjustable-rate

On an air fork the air pressure is your spring rate - you can dial it to your weight directly, which is why air forks are forgiving for riders far from the stock weight. Note coil-fork spring rate and air-fork pressure are different parameters; do not copy numbers between them.

When to re-spring

Re-spring when sag cannot be set correctly within the preload range, or when a rider is more than roughly 10-15 kg from the bike's design weight. A suspension shop will pick the rate from your kitted weight and riding level. Setup is a starting point and never a safety guarantee.

Addendum 2026-07 - air forks scale flatter than coil

On a WP AER (or similar) air fork, expect roughly +0.2 bar per 10 kg of rider weight above the ~75-85 kg standard band (about +0.02 bar per kg): a light 60 kg rider drops ~0.3 bar, a heavy 95 kg rider adds ~0.4 bar. This is much flatter than the coil-spring rule - do not scale air pressure by the same percentage you would use for a steel spring. Coil fork and shock springs follow ~0.5% of the stock rate per kg away from 75 kg.